you human beings--for
human beings we call ourselves, being similar to them in form and
culture--but there is one evil peculiar to us. We and our like in the
other elements vanish into dust and pass away, body and spirit,
so that not a vestige of us remains behind; and when you mortals
hereafter awake to a purer life we remain with the sand and the sparks
and the wind and the waves. Hence we have also no souls; the element
moves us and is often obedient to us while we live, though it scatters
us to dust when we die; and we are merry, without having aught to
grieve us--merry as the nightingales and little gold-fishes and other
pretty children of nature. But all beings aspire to be higher than
they are. Thus my father, who is a powerful water-prince in the
Mediterranean Sea, desired that his only daughter should become
possessed of a soul, even though she must then endure many of the
sufferings of those thus endowed. Such as we, however, can obtain a
soul only by the closest union of love with one of your human race.
I am now possessed of a soul, and my soul I owe you, my inexpressibly
beloved one, and it will ever thank you if you do not make my whole
life miserable. For what is to become of me if you avoid and reject
me? Still I would not retain you by deceit. And if you mean to reject
me do so now, and return alone to the shore. I will dive into this
brook, which is my uncle; and here in the forest, far removed from
other friends, he passes his strange and solitary life. He is,
however, powerful, and is esteemed and beloved by many great streams;
and as he brought me hither to the fisherman, a light-hearted,
laughing child, he will take me back again to my parents, a loving,
suffering, and soul-endowed woman."

She was about to say still more, but Huldbrand embraced her with the
most heartfelt emotion and love, and bore her back again to the shore.
It was not till he reached it that he swore, amid tears and kisses,
never to forsake his sweet wife, calling himself more happy than the
Greek sculptor Pygmalion, whose beautiful statue received life from
Venus and became his loved one. In endearing confidence Undine walked
back to the cottage, leaning on his arm, and feeling now for the first
time with all her heart how little she ought to regret the forsaken
crystal palaces of her mysterious father.

CHAPTER XIII

How they lived at Castle Ringstetten

The writer of this story, both because it moves his own hea